A couple of details from the piece I finished yesterday.

I will get a better image of this, my most recent, painting, in the daylight. But I just finished, and I'm excited, so I'm posting it!

Good news this week, in the Contemporary Art Society of New Mexico's newsletter!

It's particularly rewarding to be selected for this prize, as the triumvirate of jurors were respected curator/critics Dave Hickey and Libby Lumpkin, and UNM Art Museum director E. Luanne McKinnon. Also exciting: my work will shown along with Chen's, Carr's, and Pollard's in an exhibition at the UNM Art Museum, this summer. More details about that as they solidify.

The reception for the New Mexico Showcase at 516 ARTS was incredibly well-attended (almost frighteningly so for someone who gets easily overwhelmed in crowds!...not naming any names).

 reception photos courtesy of 516 ARTS and their flickr photostream

Wowza.

And here's this, because validation is always fun.

I'm poring over the thousands of photographs I took in Australia and making rough visual notes, earmarking some for further consideration. The process for future paintings starts with this step. I collect the figures, objects, settings, events, and visual arrangements that hold some kind of power for me, some of which will be pieced together later.

Sometimes I seize upon specific elements because of the important personal experiences they represent for me--others are worth noting because they're rife with potential in terms of metaphor, humor, complexity, or visual richness. And sometimes it's just about the color or lighting of an object, or a stranger's expression caught in passing.

Bless the long weekend. I had time enough to finish the new painting.

I meant to post progress pictures, but camera issues have been rampant recently, and I resolved not to let technical difficulties hold up the real work. So! Here it is all at once. (Click on the image to see it larger, if you like.)

It's 13 x 19, acrylic on panel. I'm pretty pleased with it.

So, on to the next!

Here's the little sketchbook I carried at Ghost Ranch.

When I say little, I do mean little--especially compared to the books I've hauled around on previous trips. The pages shown below are about 3 by 5 inches.

Sketching was limited by only being able to work in short bursts. For one thing, it was cold! I know how wimpy that sounds, but seriously. For another, I was there as a volunteer, so often I was drawing on field trips while the college kids roamed around--so my time wasn't so much my own; there was none of the "ten more minutes to get this right" that I usually permit myself. When it was time to meet back at the van, it was time to meet back at the van, no cross-hatching about it.

I also did a little experimenting with water-soluble wax pastels--which, by the way, are cool. I've never been able to get effects I like with watercolor, so they didn't really do the trick for me; but they were a good alternative when color was called for but it was too cold to use water in the field; I colored with them outside, then added water to blend them later when thawing indoors.

A great month. Back at home, and working on paintings in the studio.